Year’s End

Dec 15, 2014 | Organization, Students

Hello everyone, and a very happy holiday season to you all! I just returned from a visit to Uganda and Tanzania to meet our girls there, and it was truly a wonderful experience. It was so lovely to meet them and their families, and to make a connection with them. We really do believe that making a personal connection is one way to help ensure success in our foundation’s work. Hopefully, one day it will not only be me going to visit, and everyone on our board can meet and get to know them. The girls I met are funny, sweet, playful, shy, goofy, talented, timid…. all the things you might expect of girls between the ages of 7 and 13! There will be several more postings in the weeks to come with  more information, and we’ll update their individual pages and photos, but for now we wanted to at least introduce you to our girls in Africa.

RebeccaJaneChrista Rebecca, her mother Jane (also known as Mama Rebecca) and I. Rebecca has a dot on her forehead because it was a sticker that I gave her (click to enlarge)

DSC02626 copy Rebecca and her mother inside their very tiny house (click to enlarge)

DSC02716 copy Rebecca and her mother Jane and her sister, Loy (click to enlarge)

IMG_3342 copy Pastor Robert and Rose Nabulere, our contacts in Uganda (click to enlarge)

IMG_3472 copy Jennifer Joseph in Tanzania (click to enlarge)

IMG_3429 copy Winnifrida Leonard in Tanzania (click to enlarge)

IMG_3390 copy Jennifer Anselm in Tanzania (click to enlarge)

DSC02989 copy The girls inside their tent on a camping trip we took to a local lake (click to enlarge)

DSC03051 copy The Jenis and Winnie laughing, which they do a lot! (click to enlarge)

However, seeing as it is mid-December, it is time for our annual year-end appeal. We have made a deal with ourselves and all of you that we will NEVER send out paper mailings (or give out your information), so this is what you will get from us. Please consider donating or donating again, and passing word of the foundation along to anyone you know who might be interested. We are so proud of our girls and we want to be able to help them stay in school and thrive in what is turning out to be an increasingly challenging world. The appeal is below, and it is also in PDF form if you’d like to print it out to give to anyone. Thanks!

Greetings from the One World Foundation!

Thank you so much for your past support of One New Education. When we began this organization in March of 2011, we honestly didn’t know what it would entail; how it worked to run a non-profit; or what we would be able to do. We just hoped to be able to help a few girls go to school, delay motherhood for a few years, and perhaps realize dreams they might have of a career and a life of contribution to their families and communities. It started with one girl, and her inspiration has allowed us to continue forward, to learn and grow as an organization so that we can offer this opportunity to other girls. We’ve lost a few girls along the way, due to factors ranging from family needs to disinterest in continuing with school, and we have learned much from those experiences, disappointing as they are.

Luckily, many more girls have stayed with us and we currently help 24 girls from ten countries stay in school and fulfill their dreams. We are able to keep in touch with most of them very easily via Skype or the computer through our in-country contacts and even through family members. Using personal funds, Christa has been able to visit some of the girls each year to watch their progress and to deepen our connection. She just returned from her first trip to Africa to visit our girls in Uganda and Tanzania. We believe that the ability to connect with individual girls is a critical part of the success of our mission, and it was absolutely wonderful to meet these girls and get to know them a little better. It’s important for them as well, because now we are more than just a name sending money every year.

We are still an all-volunteer organization managed from Christa’s home office. We have three board members in addition to Christa: Cole is a teacher and artist; Ryan is a musician and public radio reporter; and Alex is a contractor and real estate agent. This past year the Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy held not one but two fundraisers for us. The National Honor Society students held a wonderful dance and music concert to raise money for Naume Ekirapa in Uganda, and in March FALA held a benefit called “Chairs for Change,” in which they auctioned off chairs decorated by community artists and students. Both fundraisers were wildly successful, and we are incredibly grateful for their efforts and help. We look forward to more such fundraisers in 2015!

Our current annual budget is $17,000. We are proud that eighty-five percent of this goes to our scholarship recipients. We don’t want to get so large that it all gets away from us, but there is no shortage of deserving young women out there, and we’d like to help as many as we can.

Although we would still like to find the time and personnel to help us apply for grants from foundations and organizations, all the non-profit strategists with whom we have spoken believe that you, the individual private donor, is still our strongest support and most powerful ally in accomplishing our work. So we need to get the word out to even more people. We will be working on a still and video presentation about the organization and the girls that we can bring to schools, businesses and other organizations that are interested in learning more.

How You Can Help

1. Pass the word! Most of our supporters are friends who have been introduced by someone who knows our work. Next time you’re chatting with a friend or family member, please tell them a little about our organization, and point them towards our website: www.oneneweducation.org. We may also be able to travel to you to speak with a group. If you know a business that would be willing to have a stack of our brochures available, we’d be happy to send you some to pass around. You can also sign up or have people sign up for our blog postings. Links to do this appear on any page of our website. New postings only come out on Tuesdays and if there are no new postings, there will be nothing in your inbox. Again, we will never send anything to you in the mail.

2. Be a Benefactor. At this point, about ten of our girls have Benefactors who pay for their school costs every year. When possible, we put these people in contact with the girls, and act as a go-between for letters and other communication. It’s a great way to develop a personal connection and to encourage these girls to finish school; it’s not just faceless money paying for her school—it’s a real person who cares about her and wants to see her succeed. The beauty of being a Benefactor is that you can create a connection with an individual girl, and we know that her educational costs are covered.

3. Donate! As the year draws to a close, consider donating (or donating again!) to One World Foundation. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and your donation is deductible to the fullest extent of the law. If you know an organization, business or foundation that is looking for a place to donate, please put us in touch with them. You can be assured that all donations will be used exactly as it says on our website: “To provide educational opportunities…ONE girl at a time.”

We are excited to be growing and moving forward and helping more and more girls—all with your help. We can’t thank you enough, and we look forward to a long and rewarding relationship with all of you, and with all of our girls. We wish you the best for the holiday season.

Sincerely,

Christa Sadler and Alex Mowl, Co-chairs
One World Foundation/One New Education scholarship
P.O. Box 22130
Flagstaff, AZ 86002
(928) 380-3359
www.oneneweducation.org
christa@oneneweduction.org
https://www.facebook.com/oneneweducation?ref=hl

2014 Year End Appeal

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